This invention relates to a device for combining partial piles of book pages by laying one pile on another. Such a device serves for combining partial piles of book pages of such type that each partial pile contains, for example, twice all the pages of a complete inner book or signature lying adjacent to one another. In the bookmaking art, the individual sheets of each partial pile or signature of a book bear, on either side thereof, single or multiple prints of two book pages lying opposite and laterally reversed to one another. The sheets of every partial pile collectively include book pages printed on one half of the pile of sheets in consecutively ascending page order and on the other half of the same pile of sheets in descending order. The partial piles are combined with one another to produce multiple signatures. However, before being combined, one of each pair of partial piles to be combined must first be rotated around through 180 degrees about an axis at 90 degrees to the normal of the plane of the pages. After assembly the entire block of sheets are then cut through the middle so that two complete signatures in proper page order are obtained. If the sheets of each partial pile contain multiple prints of the respective pages (for example, two prints) an additional cutting operation produces four signatures from the single assembly of two partial piles.
The construction of a known device for handling such partial piles in such that each partial pile having similarly oriented pile sheets is assigned to a depot and one of a pair of conveyer systems is designed to turn a partial pile through 180 degrees in the plane in which it lies while another conveyer runs parallel to the characterized one conveyer and in the same direction of motion in the region where two partial piles carried by the two conveyers are combined to form one pile. That is, one of the two conveyer system effects a turn through 180 degrees and is guided in a plane which runs parallel and adjacent to the plane of the other conveyer system. A plough-like device is provided for combining respective pairs of partial piles carried by the two conveyers.